Justice Department Obtains $1.4 Billion From Reckitt Benckiser Group in Largest Recovery in a Case

[TexasTowelie]

Justice Department Obtains $1.4 Billion From Reckitt Benckiser Group in Largest Recovery in a Case Concerning an Opioid Drug in United States History


ABINGDON, VA – Global consumer goods conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (RB Group) has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolve its potential criminal and civil liability related to a federal investigation of the marketing of the opioid addiction treatment drug Suboxone. The resolution – the largest recovery by the United States in a case concerning an opioid drug – includes the forfeiture of proceeds totaling $647 million, civil settlements with the federal government and the states totaling $700 million, and an administrative resolution with the Federal Trade Commission for $50 million.

Suboxone is a drug product approved for use by recovering opioid addicts to avoid or reduce withdrawal symptoms while they undergo treatment. Suboxone and its active ingredient, buprenorphine, are powerful and addictive opioids.

“The opioid epidemic continues to be a serious crisis for our nation, and I’m proud of the work the Department of Justice and our partners are doing to address this epidemic,” said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Claire Murray.

“We are confronting the deadliest drug crisis in our nation’s history. Opioid withdrawal is difficult, painful, and sometimes dangerous; people struggling to overcome addiction face challenges that can often seem insurmountable,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt for the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “Drug manufacturers marketing products to help opioid addicts are expected to do so honestly and responsibly.”

Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdva/pr/justice-department-obtains-14-billion-reckitt-benckiser-group-largest-recovery-case

[mr_lebowski]

1. More details ... they're busted basically for keeping prices artificially high with a bullshit

proprietary formula that's really no safer, but they pimped it like it was and I'm sure paid off doctors in various way for putting their patients onto it.

Suboxone is a scam, people should be on Subutex (which there's a MUCH MUCH cheaper generic version of) if they're going to be on Buprenorphine.

What IS kinda bullshit about this though is the Government guidelines themselves recommend Suboxone over Subutex in general, so it was easy to convince doctors that Rickett's Suboxone Film (the most expensive formulation of bupe) is what they 'should be' handing out.

Basically this is mostly just all about maintaining a hegemony on a certain formulation that only they had a patent for, and getting busted for it, which makes me happy. The government however should be looking at themselves a bit as well, because they're basically the ones that demanded there even BE SUCH THING as Suboxone ... when it's clinically identical to Subutex.

According to the indictment, Indivior—including during the time when it was a subsidiary of RB Group—promoted the film version of Suboxone (Suboxone Film) to physicians, pharmacists, Medicaid administrators, and others across the country as less-divertible and less-abusable and safer around children, families, and communities than other buprenorphine drugs, even though such claims have never been established.

The indictment further alleges that Indivior touted its “Here to Help” internet and telephone program as a resource for opioid-addicted patients. Instead, however, Indivior used the program, in part, to connect patients to doctors it knew were prescribing Suboxone and other opioids to more patients than allowed by federal law, at high doses, and in a careless and clinically unwarranted manner.

The indictment also alleges that, to further its scheme, Indivior announced a “discontinuance” of its tablet form of Suboxone based on supposed “concerns regarding pediatric exposure” to tablets, despite Indivior executives’ knowledge that the primary reason for the discontinuance was to delay the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of generic tablet forms of the drug.

The indictment alleges Indivior’s scheme was highly successful, fraudulently converting thousands of opioid-addicted patients over to Suboxone Film and causing state Medicaid programs to expand and maintain coverage of Suboxone Film at substantial cost to the government.

[safeinOhio]

2. " $1.4 billion to resolve its potential criminal and civil liability "

How much would it cost to keep you or me out of jail?